Disruptive Force

Now, I know, there’s been two weeks of silence. And believe me, I know what you were thinking. “Ah, good intentions,” you mused to yourselves, “how brief is thy allotted span. Alike unto the rose, or mayfly.”

Well, in the words of a friend, I wasn’t unproductive, I was “collecting material.”

By which I mean I was arriving late and receiving dressing downs about the importance of punctuality in the teaching profession, and I was bringing cups of coffee into lecture halls where coffee was prohibited, but that was because my coffee consumption has trebled in two short weeks, which have paradoxically also been immensely long, and I have not been doing all the readings and not handing in my essays on time, and staying up late and printing them out with unsatisfactory bibliographies, not to mention watching Torchwood and worrying about where the hell I was going to be living and whether I’d manage to alienate my entire tutor group as well as my supervisor and all ancillary staff with my lack of punctuality, assignment renditioning or even a fixed abode.

I suppose that’s an excuse. It’s my last. Next time I’ll just deliver or be quiet.

Tags: assignments, Buy In, cult, enthusiasm, excuses, Good Teacher, making friends, P&E, passion, PGCE, politics, shoes, shoulder pads, student teacher, teacher training

Day 1: A Survivor Tells All

Pastoral Retrospective

September 12^th: perfect blue sky, chilly wind and damp ground, while the sun through the ruffled grass turns it to golden fur. I ducked into the park on my way home because I caught sight of it lying hazy between the shadows of the big plane trees, their dark trunks. I finished my book in the sun, with the unbroken sky stretched out above me. I crushed conker cases under my heels and took the new chestnuts home in my hands. There’s something about the smell of them fresh out of their piths, the glow of their whorled wood, where the white clings to the eye. It reminds me of walking along the wall beside the cemetery on my way to primary school.

This idyllic vision is presented for your reading pleasure because I had a Good First Day of my PGCE.

Tags: first day, PGCE, teacher training

Enrolment, or, The End Of The Dream

To go back to September 1^st, you’d have thought I’d enrolled enough times on enough courses to know that you should wear make-up, because if they possibly can, your chosen institution or service provider is going to take a picture of you sitting in some basement room with unpalatable lighting. They will then print out your library card with this picture on it, and it will identify you for a year, and you have to pay £10 if you lose or deface it. Which you will want to.

But before that you get to stand in line for half an hour, waiting to pay your fees. I was skulking, I admit. I was sleep-deprived. My room, which is tiny, was a mess. I was in Deep Chaos, which everyone knows is two steps before Order, but only one before Despair.

Tags: cardigans, enrollment, enthusiasm, passion, PGCE, role model, student teacher, teacher training, teaching

Plan B

On September 1st I became a pre-student teacher. I’d been one before, theoretically ever since I got my place back in February, but back then it was just a back-up plan. Now I’m signed up, paid up and the phrase that comes to mind involves bunnies and headlights.

I’m still in denial.

Tags: PGCE, student teacher, teacher training, teaching